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243 my foot!

A month or so ago I bought a couple hundred 243 once fired Federal brass. The price was real fair at $25/100.

Today I decided I was going to load some 243s. I dumped the cases out of the package that they were shipped in and they look fine other than they are necked clear up to .358. I dunno what to do. I have 338 Federal, 308 winchester, 7mm08 dies so I am going to shrink em back down one step at a time. Any bets on whether I have to trim them when I get them squeezed back down. I probably should anneal them first cuz if they are brittle at all they may not handle all that stepping back down.

I hate when an hour long after supper job makes me late getting to bed.....I need my beauty sleep.

Any bets on whether I have to trim them when I get them squeezed back down. I probably should anneal them first cuz if they are brittle at all they may not handle all that stepping back down.

Count on it. I'd also use one to assemble a dummy, smoke the neck, and chamber it to see if you're going to need to turn/ream the necks. Might not be a bad idea even if the walls are not too thick- just to true them up. And yup, anneal away.

You lucky scoundrel! You must be living right. Look beyond the brass. What you have is a sign from above, you are being told to buy a Mod. 70 in caliber .358 Winchester. It is bad luck to ignore a good omen.

A month or so ago I bought a couple hundred 243 once fired Federal brass. The price was real fair at $25/100.

Today I decided I was going to load some 243s. I dumped the cases out of the package that they were shipped in and they look fine other than they are necked clear up to .358. I dunno what to do. I have 338 Federal, 308 winchester, 7mm08 dies so I am going to shrink em back down one step at a time. Any bets on whether I have to trim them when I get them squeezed back down. I probably should anneal them first cuz if they are brittle at all they may not handle all that stepping back down.

I hate when an hour long after supper job makes me late getting to bed.....I need my beauty sleep.

Is it worth all that trouble?

Consider shooting your 7-08 until you can find some 243 brass.

Sell this brass to Smokey, he has a 358 Win.

Smitty of the North

Walk Slow, and Drink a Lotta Water.
Has it ever occurred to you, that Nothing ever occurs to God? Adrien Rodgers.
You can't out-give God.

You lucky scoundrel! You must be living right. Look beyond the brass. What you have is a sign from above, you are being told to buy a Mod. 70 in caliber .358 Winchester. It is bad luck to ignore a good omen.

I need for you to talk to my wife

. I have had some dandy fine 358s over the years and one was a model 70 with a Shilen barrel. The wood was bootifu. Everybody that knows me around hre knows that I won't hunt with to guns that are to purdy. I had a limited run Ruger 77 that also had real pretty grainy wood. I vowed that I would never sell it but everything has a price and somone met what I needed for it and now it's gone.

My son has a short barreld (20 inches) S2 carbine in 243 and I gave him one with a 24 inch barrel last time he was home and instructed him to bring the short one back next trip. It will go see Jess snd become a 358 W soon.

Smitty I found 350 mixed fired 308 brass in the basement. I sized them down too then trimmed them all to 2.04 inches I then deburred all of them and loaded up 6 of them to see if they would chamber and did so with out a problem. I was woried about what BB mentioned about the case neck walls being too thick but none of them appear to be. I think the reason being that I used lots of lube on outside and inside the neck when stepping them down and they came from 243 brass to start with. I think that if they were factory 358 w brass and I was necking them down that far the neck walls would be much more prone to be thick.

Smitty I found 350 mixed fired 308 brass in the basement. I sized them down too then trimmed them all to 2.04 inches I then deburred all of them and loaded up 6 of them to see if they would chamber and did so with out a problem. I was woried about what BB mentioned about the case neck walls being too thick but none of them appear to be. I think the reason being that I used lots of lube on outside and inside the neck when stepping them down and they came from 243 brass to start with. I think that if they were factory 358 w brass and I was necking them down that far the neck walls would be much more prone to be thick.

That's interesting. I tried sizing 2 or 3,& 308 cases to 7mm-08 and it worked so well, I went to a gun show and buyed a batch of Match 308 brass. Last night, after brushing out the Inside- Necks, I sized them down to 7mm-08.

The was easy goin, and all I did was spray them with One Shot, just like the way I normally size cases.

There was no timing necessary. All of them were just a few thou short of the Trim Length, with some minor variation.

This was what I was after, cuz I will be shooting these regularly with reduced loaded cast bullets and I can load them over and over without having to worry about the lengths.

Also, they were once-fired brass, so the shoulders were fully fire-formed, making for a better seal with the cast reduced loads. Of course, 308 are more available than 7mm-'08.

I did the same thing with my 280, sizing down Fire formed 30-06 brass. With those, the length diff was more pronounced. AND they hadda be fire-formed.

Not having the need, I've done very little downsizing. I probably wouldn't have tried going from 30 to 243, so it's good to know, it can work.

Smitty of the North

Walk Slow, and Drink a Lotta Water.
Has it ever occurred to you, that Nothing ever occurs to God? Adrien Rodgers.
You can't out-give God.

That's interesting. I tried sizing 2 or 3,& 308 cases to 7mm-08 and it worked so well, I went to a gun show and buyed a batch of Match 308 brass. Last night, after brushing out the Inside- Necks, I sized them down to 7mm-08.

The was easy goin, and all I did was spray them with One Shot, just like the way I normally size cases.

There was no timing necessary. All of them were just a few thou short of the Trim Length, with some minor variation.

This was what I was after, cuz I will be shooting these regularly with reduced loaded cast bullets and I can load them over and over without having to worry about the lengths.

Also, they were once-fired brass, so the shoulders were fully fire-formed, making for a better seal with the cast reduced loads. Of course, 308 are more available than 7mm-'08.

I did the same thing with my 280, sizing down Fire formed 30-06 brass. With those, the length diff was more pronounced. AND they hadda be fire-formed.

Not having the need, I've done very little downsizing. I probably wouldn't have tried going from 30 to 243, so it's good to know, it can work.

Smitty of the North

Smitty did you by chance get some lake City match brass? When I was shooting centerfire matches that was my brass of choice for my old 308. I had the same luck with my 7mm-08 when I necked down the LC Match brass. My Vanguard 7mm-08 has got a 20 inch carbine barrel. I shot a group with it a while back the was just over 1/2 inch/100 yards. I think with some tinkering it would shoot good enough for me to use in the matches. I am at the point where I just compete against myself when shooting matches. Obviuosly(to me anyway) this old boy isn't going to shoot itty bitty groups with the young guys using way high dollar equipment. I don't need to to have fun.

Let me know how the Apex does in competition. I would be interested to know. those Bergarra barrels are made to very tight tolerences. They ought to do well. You know how it is, a fella has only got so much time on his hands to play with certain rifles and wring the best out of them. That's how I was with the Apex. I had three guns in front of it that need loads worked up for them. Two of them are guns that my kids got for me and I still haven't got anything beyond boresighting done with those guns. Now my son has me shooting trap again......maybe. I broke 45 out of 50 with the thrower cranked down some. Then I watched an 18 yer old kid bust 50 straight with the thrower set at top speed. It made me realize that I have a long way to go to get where it needs to be and the "once ya learn to ride a bike ya never forget" bit does not apply to shooting trap. i may have to shoot in the way less competitive group with the old farts.

Smitty did you by chance get some lake City match brass? When I was shooting centerfire matches that was my brass of choice for my old 308. I had the same luck with my 7mm-08 when I necked down the LC Match brass. My Vanguard 7mm-08 has got a 20 inch carbine barrel. I shot a group with it a while back the was just over 1/2 inch/100 yards. I think with some tinkering it would shoot good enough for me to use in the matches. I am at the point where I just compete against myself when shooting matches. Obviuosly(to me anyway) this old boy isn't going to shoot itty bitty groups with the young guys using way high dollar equipment. I don't need to to have fun.

Let me know how the Apex does in competition. I would be interested to know. those Bergarra barrels are made to very tight tolerences. They ought to do well. You know how it is, a fella has only got so much time on his hands to play with certain rifles and wring the best out of them. That's how I was with the Apex. I had three guns in front of it that need loads worked up for them. Two of them are guns that my kids got for me and I still haven't got anything beyond boresighting done with those guns. Now my son has me shooting trap again......maybe. I broke 45 out of 50 with the thrower cranked down some. Then I watched an 18 yer old kid bust 50 straight with the thrower set at top speed. It made me realize that I have a long way to go to get where it needs to be and the "once ya learn to ride a bike ya never forget" bit does not apply to shooting trap. i may have to shoot in the way less competitive group with the old farts.

The brass was headstamped, "Frontier", whuch I never heered of before.

My shooting competition is with cast bullets, at 25 meters, off-hand, so can't really prove a barrel that way.

I will be shooting full power loads with jacketed bullets to test accuracy, before too long, and will letcha know how well I can do. I've shot only 1 such load, so far.

I expect accuracy on the same level as my BAs.

Competition for me, is jist like it was, running marathons, and 10Ks. Just try to improve and enjoy any accomplishments.

I have a nother gun loading project before me. But right now my I'm working with the APEX , and shooting the HiPoint 45 handgun. Its really a Hoot, and I'm gittin better at it.

So far, I can't see a practical use for it, other than just bangin away. It's probably too hefty to pack around, even after I become proficient with it.

I wouldn't carry it with a round in the chamber, because I don't trust the safety, and the slide is so hard to operate, getting it into action, is slow.

Yep, Frontier is an old Hornady product. Converting 243 from 308 is and easy one. Making 22CCM from 5.7x28 is a bit more challenging. I've been working on that project for the last few days with some success. If it wasn't fun it would not be worth the effort.

I was "in the trade" so the speak when it came out. Hornady was going to go into ammo bigtime, but had to get the ball rolling in an era of all Winchester and Remington. They priced it 10-15% below the others trying to elbow their way into the market, hence the "discount." Good stuff I thought, but they couldn't outlast Big Green and Big Red W.

A few years later Smith and Wesson tried it too. We flat skinned a fat hog on the S&W because they had shotgun ammo too. Their deal to dealers was the more you bought, the less you paid for it. I won't go into the details too far, but we got a whole railroad boxcar of shotgun for next to nothing and warehoused it the year before ammo prices took their big jump back in the early 1970's. We ended up selling it (all of it in 3 months!) at year-before low ammo prices while taking our normal markup and still giving guys a 25% "break" on what everyone else charged for Winchesterington. In spite of a big sales effort S&W couldn't break into the ammo market either, long term.

I was "in the trade" so the speak when it came out. Hornady was going to go into ammo bigtime, but had to get the ball rolling in an era of all Winchester and Remington. They priced it 10-15% below the others trying to elbow their way into the market, hence the "discount." Good stuff I thought, but they couldn't outlast Big Green and Big Red W.

A few years later Smith and Wesson tried it too. We flat skinned a fat hog on the S&W because they had shotgun ammo too. Their deal to dealers was the more you bought, the less you paid for it. I won't go into the details too far, but we got a whole railroad boxcar of shotgun for next to nothing and warehoused it the year before ammo prices took their big jump back in the early 1970's. We ended up selling it (all of it in 3 months!) at year-before low ammo prices while taking our normal markup and still giving guys a 25% "break" on what everyone else charged for Winchesterington. In spite of a big sales effort S&W couldn't break into the ammo market either, long term.

So, discount, doesn't necessarily mean bad brass.

Looks like Hornady finally made it into the ammo business. Probably, the LeverEvolution helped. I'm not interested in it but others seem to be.

SOTN

Walk Slow, and Drink a Lotta Water.
Has it ever occurred to you, that Nothing ever occurs to God? Adrien Rodgers.
You can't out-give God.

i have found that in many cases, this is the funner group to shoot with...not so serious.

For sure! I am not going to get wound up about target shooting but boy some guys do. We have a rich guy that brings the most expensive crap with him to the shoots then wants to bum ammo from everyone. Ray and I shoot Wolf Match Target rimfire stuff. So this guy wants to shoot it but can't find any so he helped himself to mine and justified it by saying he'd pay me back when he found some. That meant I had to shoot the last couple of weeks with a new lot number.....not good. The next spring he still hadn't found any Wolf ammo and he was out(truth is he knew where we were getting it but wasn't going to pay the going rate). He started hanging around looking for his chance. We take turns cleaning up the range and putting target stands away after the shoot. One of the guys was saving the empty Wolf 50 pack boxes. I thought it was odd until he presented Harold with a full brick of "Wolf Match Target" ammo. Onliest he was only getting the wolf boxes full of Thunderbolts. It took him two weeks to figure out that Wolf ammo should not have an "R" on the base of each shell. I didn't know anything about the scheme until Harold pitched a tizzy fit when he realized that he'd been had. It was more than funny!